Since you mentioned Princess, I'll point out that Princess is one of the cruiselines that have auto-tipping that has been around since anytime dining had been started. Previously, each cabin was given some tipping envelopes near the end of the cruise for the purpose of taking care of the tips. For us, it meant getting out different amoutns of cash and trying to figure out if each person (the cabin steward, the dining room waitstaff, etc.) would get just the recommended amount, or if we add something to their envelope. Then on the final night of the cruise, we would take the dining room one to dinner with us to hand over. Also we would look for the cabin steward (who would be sure to hang around for this purpose) to give that envelope to.
As Blizzard stated above, some passengers would skip dinner that night and the waitstaff would get stiffed.
When the anytime dining was instituted, those passengers were often being served by a different set of waitstaff each night. Autotipping ensured that these waiters would still get their tips...unless passengers told Passenger Services to remove the tips.
For us, autotipping makes that last day easier. We just concern ourselves with any extra tipping, as well as what to put in the envelope for the kids' program staff.
If I'm following correctly, there is a daily charge per person and it is automatically charged to our bill. However we can approach the purser and have the charge removed in favour of tipping personally.
Since you mentioned Princess, I'll point out that yes, there is a daily charge per person that is automatically added to your onboard account that is a gratuity for your stateroom attendant and servers.
However, if you go to the Purser and have the charge removed, they will enquire as to why you are not happy with the service. If you decide to do that and provide a personal gratuity, the stateroom attendant and servers are required to give those gratuities back to the Purser. They are only allowed to keep the 'extra' gratuities. In other words, if you allow the automatic gratuities to be charged to your account and then provide an additional gratuity to the servers, they can keep those. But if you have the automatic gratuities removed from your account, they must turn any gratuities in - and if they don't, they can be reprimanded.
I object to that whole process, but that's the way they've implemented it.
What is the reason they would have to turn their tip money over to the Purser ? This just doesn't make sense. I have never been on Princess or Carnival ships. I didn't like the auto gratuities in the beginning, but now I do. I don't have to sit & figure everything out. I always give the minimum, but there are alot of times we add a few extra bucks. We usually go around to the bar staff that took good care of us & give them a few extra. I know a lot of people don't like the tipping & it's an awful shame that some of them stiff the staff & yet are sometimes the most demanding. I do believe that some work harder the way the tips are as opposed to building them into the price of the cruise.
Alles klar, I think. And I think it'll make more sense when we get there.Thank you so much everyone. I don't feel so much like we're doing this in a vacuum.
Kind of like watching others to see what fork to use at a formal dinner! The automatic stays in place and I'll add cards to my list!
I posed this question on another thread about automatic tipping and will ask here.
Since they add the tips per person, do they also add it to the children's and teen's shipboard accounts? If they do that doesn't seem quite fair to me. I don't have kids but if I did I wouldn't care to tip the same amount as I as an adult would tip??????
I posed this question on another thread about automatic tipping and will ask here.
Since they add the tips per person, do they also add it to the children's and teen's shipboard accounts? If they do that doesn't seem quite fair to me. I don't have kids but if I did I wouldn't care to tip the same amount as I as an adult would tip??????
Good question, Carol!
I don't think I have seen this addressed before.
Yes, they charge kids the same automatic tips. I have taken kids on Carnival, Princess, and RCCL and all charged them the same. Of course, on RCCL we asked for prepaid gratuities. We're taking kids on NCL in a few days and the prepaid gratuities have been charged to their accounts the same as adults. On Celebrity we just chose to pay the same for them on the last night.
Just to be clear, if we have the automatic tipping in place we don't use the envelopes?
Quote:
Originally Posted by bgsimp
What is the reason they would have to turn their tip money over to the Purser ? This just doesn't make sense. I have never been on Princess or Carnival ships. I didn't like the auto gratuities in the beginning, but now I do. I don't have to sit & figure everything out. I always give the minimum, but there are alot of times we add a few extra bucks. We usually go around to the bar staff that took good care of us & give them a few extra. I know a lot of people don't like the tipping & it's an awful shame that some of them stiff the staff & yet are sometimes the most demanding. I do believe that some work harder the way the tips are as opposed to building them into the price of the cruise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by houch
I posed this question on another thread about automatic tipping and will ask here.
Since they add the tips per person, do they also add it to the children's and teen's shipboard accounts? If they do that doesn't seem quite fair to me. I don't have kids but if I did I wouldn't care to tip the same amount as I as an adult would tip??????
What happens (from what I understand) is when you give your cabin steward an envelope with a tip in it, he's supposed to write down your cabin number and hand it to his supervisor. Then the cabin number is checked to see if you had removed the auto-tipping. If you had, the money in the envelope is put into the tipping "pool" so that the workers will share that amount (just as the auto-tips is shared among a pool). If you had kept the autotips on, the money is returned to the cabin steward for his use.
So if you feel you didn't get great service among one particular area, you're not really just rewarding the crew member that you want to as he won't get that entire tip. Hope this makes sense.
As for kids, they often cause as much effort (maybe more in some cases) for the crew members. And even though our girl had only one meal (out of 15 days) in the traditional dining room, we still didn't reduce her tip portion. She did have many meals in the buffet and from the pizzeria, so it wasn't as if she didn't eat at all. And the workers in those areas get covered by the autotips too. We also put some cash in a tipping envelope (you can request these from your cabin steward or go down to the pursers or Passenger Services Desk, as it is called on Princess) and give to the Fun Zone staff for her age group on the last night of the kids' program.
Princess also has a special card you can fill out (sorta like a "Making a Difference" card) with a crew member's name -- you can put down the first name, the country they're from, and what area they work in (Wheelhouse Bar, Horizon Court, etc.). Supposedly there is a drawing and the crew member selected gets something. But I imagine,and hope, that a tally is kept and any crew member with a lot of these cards and lots of "excellents" have a better chance of getting promoted. We've gotten the cards from the PSD from time to time.
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